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Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

vinepair.com

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Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#171

Post by CoryMathews »

gsruff wrote: post #153
peckrob wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DIY winemaking kits can actually make some pretty decent wines if you spend a bit of time and money getting proper equipment. Not a lot - $100 will get you a really, really good setup with two glass carboys for fermenting, siphons, thief and test jar, hydrometer, corker, etc. I've been making my own wines for years now. Occasionally I'll do a full from-scratch wine, but more often I buy a $40 kit from Midwest Supplie…

I would recommend avoiding glass carboys for fermenting. They are heavy, especially when filled, difficult to clean with their narrow mouths, and quite dangerous if they shatter when you accidentally drop them. (They're easy to drop while you're cleaning them and they're wet and slippery.) There are numerous accounts on home brewing forums of trips to the emergency room because a glass carboy broke and injured someon…

Plastic fermenters are MUCH safer (I am one of the many who have gotten minor cuts from shattering glass carboys) but just plain terrible for fermenting in. A little scratch in the wall and your sanitizing process will miss the wild yeast that grows in the scratch making the container essentially useless for fermenting with your chosen yeast only.

Also they make widemouth glass carboys which are very easy to clean. But they shatter all the same.

If your going to avoid glass go 304 stainless (SSBrewtechs BrewBucket etc.) plus it basically lasts forever.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#172

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Haemm0r wrote: post #15

Similar story: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenklo Assembly instructions: "And now never ever connect pin x and pin y, because then you'd have a working modem, which would be illigal...

An old Heathkit radio set had a red wire that you put a tag on that said something like "Do not remove this wire, or this radio set could broadcast on HAM radio frequencies which would be illegal unless properly licensed!"

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#173

Post by telmo »

galangalalgol wrote: post #142
peckrob wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DIY winemaking kits can actually make some pretty decent wines if you spend a bit of time and money getting proper equipment. Not a lot - $100 will get you a really, really good setup with two glass carboys for fermenting, siphons, thief and test jar, hydrometer, corker, etc. I've been making my own wines for years now. Occasionally I'll do a full from-scratch wine, but more often I buy a $40 kit from Midwest Supplie…

I've always avoided wine brewing. Lots of cider ceyser and beer. What styles/varietals are ok right out of the secondary like that? Edit: mostly interested in Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, vino verde, and maybe tempranillo. The kits seem pretty expensive. Trader joes has very tasty bottles in those styles (maybe not the CS) for $5.

> vino verde

Not wanting to be pedantic or snobbish, but it is "vinho verde", because it is a Portuguese type of wine (I am Portuguese, and that is why I care about this :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinho_Verde

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#174

Post by galangalalgol »

telmo wrote: post #173
galangalalgol wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always avoided wine brewing. Lots of cider ceyser and beer. What styles/varietals are ok right out of the secondary like that? Edit: mostly interested in Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, vino verde, and maybe tempranillo. The kits seem pretty expensive. Trader joes has very tasty bottles in those styles (maybe not the CS) for $5.

> vino verde Not wanting to be pedantic or snobbish, but it is "vinho verde", because it is a Portuguese type of wine (I am Portuguese, and that is why I care about this :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinho_Verde

Sorry I knew there was an h in there somewhere but I didn't take the time to look it up. Only been there for about a week and I loved it. The seafood was fantastic and I like the weather a lot. We were mostly around Lisbon. Really like Cascais.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#175

Post by pantulis »

alistairSH wrote: post #132
pantulis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess that's the kind of wine that goes well with Coke, Pepsi or my personal fav Lemon Fanta.

Am I misreading, or are you saying you mix wine with soda/pop?

Yes. Soda, wine and ice. Of course I am not endorsing to do the mix with good wine ;)

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#176

Post by pantulis »

dwringer wrote: post #136
rozenmd wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a Thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimocho

I always heard a mixture of wine and soda pop called a "wine cooler", a use that would have gone back several decades, but Wikipedia seems to think that specifically means a mix of fruit juice and wine. There is some discussion in the talk page about this discrepancy. I guess maybe the term was a regional thing.

I guess it's not that an original invention so it may have different names in different places ;)

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#177

Post by sphynxie »

mark-r wrote: post #167
themikesanto wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using nitrous to make the whipped cream is instantaneous and doesn't wear your arms out. Most coffee shops use these as well to make whipped cream for drinks.

Wearing your arms out wouldn't be a problem in a bakery that's properly equipped, there are machines for that. I can definitely see the use case in a coffee shop though.

Every Starbucks in the world uses them.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#178

Post by rdtsc »

refurb wrote: post #28
rdtsc wrote: post #7

When someone suggests a clever loophole, the response is usually “that would never work, the police and the judge will know exactly what you’re doing”. But somehow, a whole industry developed around the “do not do … detailed prohibited thing”. I guess, because it somehow worked that one time, it became memorable as an exception, while in most cases it wouldn’t fly in court.

Prohibition never had widespread support. People were able to stock up prior to enactment, there were allowances for religious and medicinal use. People made their own alcohol before prohibition and did so after enactment. Enforcement was mostly the “big busts” but it petered out pretty quickly. So not surprisingly something being illegal or not isn’t the critical factor, it’s the willingness to enforce the law (e.g.…

Yeah that makes sense to me. Wouldn't be surprised if the officials were themselves buying those wine bricks by the box.

So this could work in general in cases where at a high level (federal) the legislation satisfies some puritanical ideological goals, but individually, or at the local/state level, nobody really buys into it so its enforcement is so so.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#179

Post by bruce511 »

eggsbenedict wrote: post #51
sdoering wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can you be so blithely supportive of rule-by-decree in supposed democracies Because that is the reason we life in a democracy with checks and balances implemented. In Germany some decrees were canceled by our (up to the highest) courts, others were declared to be in line with the constitution. We elect officials (setting the policy) every four years to rule us in our name. So we hand them the right and the powe…

No, I was specifically responding to the person who said that it was "cool" that governments used covid resstrictions as a pretext for running "social experiments." I am specifically quoting an individual, not creating a strawman. Read the comment thread I was taking part in carefully for evidence. For what it's worth, I think many of the covid restrictions were at the time believed to be necessary measures, but that…

They were "experiments" in the sense that the actual outcomes were predicted (or not) but in normal times would be difficult to achieve at scale.

I'm not suggesting that they were unrelated to the issue at hand - and I'm not implying they were unethical.

I believe most govts acted in good faith, with limited information, and (quite literally) no experience to draw on. Even today we don't really know what the "best approach" was, what we can say though is that a future pandemic will have better data to work with.

Had all countries had the exact same response we would not really know if what we did was best or not. Lockdown, travel restrictions, alcohol bans, closure of businesses, closure of sport, limited social mobility, police enforcement, no enforcement - all these and more were tried in one place or another.

They were experiments with forseen, and unforseen consequences.

Sure there was over-reach here and there, but for the most part it was a best effort response from no known experience.

I don't believe it could be called tyrannical.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#180

Post by bruce511 »

mmmpop wrote: post #144
bruce511 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool because data is always cool :) More seriously,because it would simply be impossible to run these social experiments in normal circumstances. There are other examples; New Zealand and Australia tested a "closed border" approach, Sweden adopted a "personal responsibility" approach. Some places had curfews. The shere variety and scale of the last two years have generated enormous amounts of data, and matching data…

>> Cool because data is always cool :) Tell that to the families that had loved ones in the Unit 731 experiments? I'm just saying that by prefacing something with "well since we're in a state of tyranny it would be neat to [do a thing]"... it doesn't always fly and not all data is necessary to have when it comes at a cost of human lives.

I feel maybe too much is being read into the word "experiment". I meant it in a hypothesis-action-result sense.

Every action taken by every govt was in effect an experiment since nothing of this sort had occurred in living memory, and past instances occurred in a very different world.

In SA there was a hypothesis that reducing the burden on the health sector was a priority, and that a significant contributing factor to hospital load was alcohol, hence limiting alcohol consumption (via limiting sales) was worth testing.

The experiment upheld the hypothesis, but at the same time highlighted negative impacts on the alcohol sector as a whole. To determine the best hospital outcome, while balancing industry requirements, a number of approaches short of an outright ban were tested. These outcomes will likely influence policy moving forward and equally provide important data for the next time hospitals need to be protected in this way.

New Zealand experimented with a sealed border, and eradication approach (successful), Australia did the same with somewhat less success. Again the impacts of those policies can be studied for sometime to come.

The opposite of these experiments was to experiment by doing nothing (Sweden for example) - even doing nothing was an experiment.

I'm not saying covid was fun, or that the very real human cost should be minimised, but clearly some countries fared better than others. Being able to understand why that is the case will be really important next time.

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